Adventurers entering the Shadowlands will find the realm of the dead in disarray. In the natural order of things, souls are sorted and sent on to an afterlife realm appropriate to the lives they lived,[5] but starting around the time of the Burning Legion's third invasion of Azeroth,[20] all souls who have perished—including the innocents slain at Teldrassil—are being funneled directly into the Maw. The Shadowlands are starving for anima even as the Maw continues to grow from the glut of fresh souls. Sylvanas Windrunner has been seemingly perpetrating acts to bring about great amounts of death and destruction. In partnership with the Jailer, they have been working toward a common end for some time.[5]

The spell called "spiritual projection" or "astral projection" brings the caster to the Twisting Nether instead of the Shadowlands;[65] and the Twisting Nether is also referred as "realm of ghosts".[66] However, both planes don't appear to be related, as Outland is floating on the Twisting Nether,[65] but the Shadowlands can be reached in Outland in The Burning Crusade.

One thing that has always been remarkable to me in World of Warcraft is how it brings players together from all sides of life to meet with common goals. I've been playing the game for fifteen years, and have played with gamers with all sorts of accessibility needs. I distinctly remember raiding Serpentshrine Cavern back in the day with an amputee friend Paladin who healed an entire raid of 25-players using a mouse equipped with dozens of buttons. He also competed at a high level in World of Warcraft Arena, as well as any able-bodied player I've seen.

Spirit healers decide when it's time for a mortal soul to pass into the Shadowlands.[5] When a mortal dies and their soul crosses the veil between life and death, it is shepherded by the kyrian to Oribos so that they can be judged by the impassive Arbiter.[6] All of the soul's contents—deeds, misdeeds, thoughts, accomplishments, and failures—are instantly laid bare before the Arbiter, who then judges in a mere instant and sends the soul off to one of the infinite realms of the Shadowlands, each of which is ruled over by a powerful Covenant.[3][5] The Covenants are ancient and powerful orders who have existed since the Shadowlands were shaped long ago, and who bear sacred duties to help maintain the afterlife's ecosystem. Not every soul is filtered into the main four Covenants.[5] Each soul brings with it a vital force known as anima, the product of all of the soul's experiences and actions in life. Anima is the lifeblood of the Shadowlands, making trees grow and rivers flow and is the source that's drawn upon to conduct the magic of death. Great souls—both good and evil—have a lot of anima, while those who have lived humbler lives have less.[3][5] Four of the realms—Ardenweald, Bastion, Maldraxxus, and Revendreth—are especially vital to the functioning of the Shadowlands. However, there could be infinite afterlives, some small and tailored to a single person while others are vast and full of either splendor or torment. Between each realm is a cloudy space which was once rich with streams of anima connecting the different domains, but the current anima drought has caused the realms to become cut off from one another, breeding fear and mistrust among the inhabitants.[7]